Nigeria Establishes Wheat Procurement Centers
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In Nigeria, Wheat is grown mainly in Borno, Bauchi, Yobe, Kano, Jigawa, and Zamfara States. The Wheat Farmers Association of Nigeria (WFAN) has assured of its preparedness to cultivate over 350,000 hectares to produce not less than one million metric tons in the 2022/2023 farming season.
Former Executive Director of Lake Chad Research Institute (LCRI), Dr. Oluwashina Olabanji, said that the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development procured and distributed some inputs, seeds (300Mt), agrochemicals, and farm equipment to Wheat farmers to aid accelerated Wheat production in Nigeria. He noted that the Flour Milling Association of Nigeria had cultivated 4000 ha for seed and grain production in some of the Wheat-growing States in Nigeria.
According to him, the African Development Bank (AfDB) budget support for Wheat self-sufficiency in Nigeria took off during the season with the promotion of local seed production by Agricultural Research Institutes and seed companies to reduce seed importation to the country and to enable the country has quality and quantity Wheat seeds to cultivate the proposed 250,000ha for 2023/2024 cropping season.
“If the commitment of the Government to the agriculture sector is sustained, no doubt Nigeria will be food secured in no distant future despite the global food crises,” he explained. Speaking further, he stated that with the intervention of the CBN and African Development Bank (AfDB) in Wheat production, it would take ten years of persistence to be Wheat self-sufficient.
The Flour Milling Association of Nigeria (FMAN) says it establishes procurement centers across 13 states to off-take all Wheat grain from up to 50,000 farmers in its 2022-2023 program. The National Program Manager of FMAN Wheat Development Project, Dr. Aliyu Samaila, said their number one role was to provide a market for Wheat farmers in the country.
The Manager added: We are expanding our procurement as an industry across the Wheat-producing states through additional aggregation staff and warehouse capacity. Specifically, we are establishing procurement centers across 13 Northern States to off-take all Wheat grain from up to 50,000 farmers. The states are Kano, Kaduna, Jigawa, Kebbi, Sokoto, Bauchi, Adamawa, Gombe, Plateau, Taraba, Zamfara, and Yobe.
“To sustainably expand Wheat production in the country, we must increase farmer yields to make Wheat competitive with rice and other dry season crops,’’ Samaila said. Cultivation of 114-hectare demonstration farms across the six northern states to provide training on good agronomic practice was also part of their development plan. States include Adamawa, Borno, Gombe, Plateau, Taraba, and Yobe.
Also, they will expand FMAN’s direct Out-grower program with input loans to cover 4,300 farmers across 3,900 hectares in seven states – Kano, Jigawa, Sokoto, Kebbi, Kaduna, Bauchi, and Zamfara. “We will also expand seed production with six certified seed companies, including both dry and wet season seed production, to produce sufficient seeds for 10,000 hectares next season, among others,” he added.
WFAN intervened in purchasing more than 50,000 tons of Wheat over the past five years and signed MoU to buy any quantity of Wheat available at an attractive price based on farmer yields. It purchased Wheat directly from over 4,000 farmers at 40 village-level Wheat Farmer Centers in 2022.
Wheat Import in Nigeria
According to AgFlow data, Nigeria imported 1 million tons of Wheat in Jan – Apr 2023. In April, Poland led its import market with 0.13 million tons, followed by Lithuania (55,000 tons) and Latvia (38,500 tons).
In 2020, Nigeria imported Wheat worth $2.15 billion, becoming the world’s 4th largest importer of Wheat. In the same year, Wheat was Nigeria’s 3rd most imported product. Nigeria imported Wheat primarily from: Russia ($556 million), Lithuania ($502 million), the United States ($312 million), Canada ($242 million), and Latvia ($192 million).
Other sources: ZAWYA
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